A good cop on the case

Retired homicide detective Ron Iddles has a tale to tell – and so too, eventually, do those who commit murders, writes

IF TRAGEDY befell your family, you’d want someone like Ron Iddles on the case.

Iddles, now retired, is Australia’s most experienced homicide detective. In a career spanning 320 murder investigations, he has solved 99 per cent of cases including many decades-old cases.

In Foxtel’s gripping new documentary series, based on Justine Ford’s book The Good Cop, Iddles takes viewers through his firsthand account of six cold cases.

The episodes range from the first murder case he was assigned, the 1980 murder of bookshop owner Maria Jones, to the final cold case he solved – the 1983 murder of Michelle Buckingham.

“When people ask me ‘ what’s a murderer look like?’ I say ‘He looks like you or I’,” he tells The Guide.

“Those who have got away with it for 10 or 15 years, when you ultimately catch up with them and have got sufficient evidence to charge them, some of them say ‘You know what Ron, I’ve thought about it every day since I did it’.

“People carry that burden, but people who commit homicides eventually tell someone and (my investigations) were about finding the person they told.”

Iddles got the nickname “The Greatman” from his fellow detectives for his dogged, but respectful, approach to the job.

Rather than criticise the original investigation, he saw it as his duty to approach the case with fresh eyes.

“You can be empathetic but don’t be sympathetic,” he says.

“When you become sympathetic you become emotionally attached and your judgment becomes clouded.”

The humble investigator, who